Once it became clear that Trump was going to become the president of the USA, my Facebook feed became cluttered with attempts to understand how that could possibly happen. How could a white supremacist, misogynist and utterly transparent snake oil salesman accumulate so many votes? Those on the left both inside and outside the borders of the USA struggled to understand what had happened.
[Listen to the audio of this entire article]
A common conclusion in too many of these pieces is that the left needs to reach out, and listen to the concerns of, those who voted for him as a priority. In a similar fashion to how sections of the left evaluated Brexit, they see a working class anti-establishment rebellion in the Trump vote from what they term the ‘white working class’. They believe that component was won by Trump because it has been neglected by the left - often, they will assert, because the rest of the left was distracted by what they call identity politics.
This is a simple explanatory story that is particularly attractive to those sections of the left that have a nostalgic yearning for an imagined past of pure class struggle, shorn of internal concerns around oppression. But the concept of masses of otherwise progressive working class voters opting for Trump on economic grounds is a myth. The attractiveness of that myth and its promotion has more to do with the hostility of that section of the left towards the influence of intersectional feminism than anything more substantive. That hostility has caused them to seek out anecdotes and exceptional regions and present them as the typical story that defines the election just as liberal Hillary Clinton campaigners have focused in on Facebook false news stories as the cause of her defeat. read full story / add a comment

At least 84 dead in Nice as a truck is deliberately driven through the huge crowds marking the anniversary of the French Revolution. The driver who was shot be police after plowing through the crowd for 1.2km is reported to be a French citizen of Tunisian descent. The method of attack which is very similar to one advocated in the ISIS magazine strongly suggests an ISIS /Daesh attack. read full story / add a comment

The Leave / Brexit vote in the referendum came in the end as a surprise, a narrow win for Remain was expected. This may be because the core Leave vote was in the run-down white working class communities of the now desolate English and Welsh industrial zones. A population trapped in conditions of long-term unemployment and poverty who no one really pays much attention to anymore.
Some on the left have seized on the makeup of this core vote to suggest that there was some progressive element to the Brexit vote despite the campaign being led by racist hatemongers and wealthy US-oriented neoliberals. Mostly that’s a mixture of wishful thinking and post hoc justification for having called for a Leave vote in the first place, but it is true that a section of the working class, C2DEs in marketing speak, voted to Leave in close to a 2:1 ratio. Is the class composition of that vote enough to automatically make it progressive regardless of content? And what does it tell us that a section of the radical left seems to think the answer to that question is yes, that it is enough to be anti-establishment? read full story / add a comment

Here are 9 video and audio recordings from the Dublin anarchist bookfair. So whether you were far away or were there but had to miss one session in order to attend another this is your chance to catch up. read full story / add a comment

Every year hundreds of people attend the Dublin Anarchist Bookfair for a day of inspiring discussions and the opportunity of meeting lots of other radicals, browsing books and meeting campaigns.

The 11th Dublin Anarchist Bookfair will take place Saturday 16th of April around Smithfield square, there will also be a major event on the Friday night in the Teachers Club, 35 Parnell Square.

On the Saturday the book & campaign stalls will be in The Generator on the east side of Smithfield square, doors open at 9.30 for setup, 10.00 for early browsing. The meetings will also be in two pubs, the Cobblestone at the top (north) of the square and Frank Ryans which is just off the South West corner on Queen st. read full story / add a comment

Why can’t the 99% simply vote in a government that acts in their interest and not that of the 1%

At a simple level parliamentary elections sound like the ideal way for the mass of the ‘have nots’ to use their numbers to overcome the power and influences of the tiny number of have’s. Occupy talked about this division in the language of the 1% and 99%; a crude approximation that does reflect a reality where the number of wealthy decision makers is actually very tiny, indeed less than 1%. So, why can’t the 99% simply vote in a government that acts in their interest and not that of the 1%? read full story / add a comment

What if we build it and they don’t come? That was the experience of the left during the crisis - decades had been spent building organisations and a model of how crisis would create revolution but when the crisis arrived the left discovered that the masses weren’t convinced. The expected pattern of crisis leading to small strikes and protests, then to mass strikes and riot and then perhaps to general strike and revolution didn’t flow as expected. Under that theory the radical left would at first be marginal but then as conditions drove class militancy to new heights the workers disappointed by reformist politicians and unions leaders would move quickly to swell its ranks. read full story / add a comment

We awake to news that more towns in Ireland are under water due to storm flooding. And that perhaps the sea ice at the north pole might melt due to temperatures rising above zero. The first story is given a lot more prominence in Irish media than the second but strangely at the same time another story is being celebrated. The start of yet more greenhouse gases being pumped out of their safe place far below the sea off the Irish shore to be processed and then released into the atmosphere via the Corrib refinery (The refinery was sold off by the Irish Government to the Shell company for a fraction of what it is worth). read full story / add a comment

One of the key foundation documents for the Workers Solidarity Movement is the ‘Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft)’ This text was written in Paris in 1926 by a group that included exiled Russian and Ukrainian anarchists and was very influenced by the lessons they drew from the Russian Revolution. Three of the authors -- Nestor Makhno, Ida Mett, Piotr Archinov -- were then and now very well known anarchists, the remaining two -- Valevsky and Linsky -- I know relatively little about. read full story / add a comment

Graffiti has appeared at the site of the bomb explosion in Ankara yesterday that reads "It was not terror that killed us, it was the state." This is reflecting the widespread belief that the true origins of the bombing that killed around 100 people at the pro Kurdish peace demonstration are to be found in Erdogan's AKP party desperate attempt to intensify conflict in the hope of polarizing the electorate ahead of Novembers elections. The same process in other words that those killed yesterday were demonstrating against. read full story / add a comment

Amnesty International is holding its International Council Meeting in Dublin this week and earlier today many of the delegate attending staged a protest at the Dail (Irish Parliament) against the criminalisation of women under Ireland's anti-choice laws. read full story / add a comment

A couple of hundred people came to the pro choice solidarity rally in Dublin, Ireland last nigh organised by the WSMt. It was called to protest against the prosecution of a women in Belfast for supplying her daughter with the abortion pill. read full story / add a comment

Friday June 12ths shock closure of the iconic Clery’s department store in Dublin shows how the law is set up to favour capital and screw workers. Workers are being told there may be no additional redundancy or owed holiday payments as the company is in debt. But this is only the case because right before the closure the largest asset, the building itself, was separated off from the accumulated debts. This was almost certainly legal under our system but of such obvious dubious morality that the workers could expect massive popular support if they occupied the building on a permanent ongoing basis. read full story / add a comment

Southern Ireland is voting toward on whether to allow Marriage equality, that is to extend marriage to couples of the same gender. Young migrants have flocked back to the country in the last 24 hours to help insure the referendum passes. If it does Ireland will be the first country in the work to introduce Marriage equality by popular referendum yet it was one of the last countries in Europe to decriminalise sex between men. In that sense the referendum is about much more than the issue of Marriage but it also a battle against the 'old Ireland' of clerical control and an authoritarian state that sought to control all aspects of the lives of those under its control. The articles that follow are some of the many that the Workers Solidarity Movement have published, for the most part via their Facebook page. read full story / add a comment

Revolutions are seldom made in favourable circumstances. Russia 1917 emerged from the mass slaughter of WWI and the disintegration of an economy under the pressure of the supply demands of that war. Spain 1936 emerged from a well planned and executed fascist coup amongst a powerful military backed and armed by international fascism. Schemas for revolution that depend on quiet times and plenty may well be doomed from the start. read full story / add a comment

The 10th Dublin Anarchist Bookfair which will take place Saturday 25th of April around Smithfield square. If you live in Ireland come along and meet anarchists and hundreds of people curious about anarchism in what is the biggest annual gathering of any radical left event. read full story / add a comment

At least four guards involved in the tear gassing and other incidents of abuse while Dylan was in Don Dale are currently working as guards in the Darwin Correctional Centre and are continually tormenting Dylan. Some have threatened to have him bashed if he speaks out about his treatment.

At least four guards involved in the tear gassing and other incidents of abuse while Dylan was in Don Dale are currently working as guards in the Darwin Correctional Centre and are continually tormenting Dylan. Some have threatened to have him bashed if he speaks out about his treatment.